


He's Back: A Badger Story

by uragani



Series: The Forgotten History of Earth-72 [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Red Hood: Lost Days, Under the Red Hood
Genre: AU, Amnesia, Earth-72, Gen, Language, Mention of Miles Morales, Mentions of most characters, Or Jay has a mouth on him, Parasite Universe, crossovers, mentions of other universes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 01:49:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4900912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uragani/pseuds/uragani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU Narration relating to an RP. Jason Todd from Earth-72 has been suffering traumatic amnesia ever since his brain shut down when he overwhelmed himself trying to kill Batman. This is when his memories return, and how they're triggered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He's Back: A Badger Story

Jason's finger pressed against the trigger watching Batman swoop down to his car. Any second now, any moment, he could blow the bastard sky high. He could kill him off just like he himself had died. A week of planning, working with criminals, and doing the dirty work himself had lead to this moment. But something felt, wrong. His chest hurt, and the thoughts at the back of his head that had been encouraging him sounded angry that he was hesitating. He pulled his finger away from the trigger, eased it back into place... then pulled away again for good. Batman sped off in the car ahead of him, completely unaware that he had narrowly avoided death, as Jason dropped to the rooftop, eyes closed, the trigger dropping to the side gleaming in the sunlight.

When he woke up, he didn't know how much time had passed. Didn't know his own name, didn't know-- anything. Faces, lives, everything that connected him to the Bat family had been wiped out of his memory leaving him a husk of his former self. He crept down from the roof, adjusted his hoodie, and scared and alone... decided to make a go of it until he could figure things out. The whispering was now a turned down radio at best, the nameless teenager slipped through the cracks, hitting the street. Lost back into the depths of Gotham for a third time in his life.

 

* * *

 

Earth-72's reality was already cracked by the punch of Superboy-Prime, a gouge in the side of... everything allowing It to slip in. A parasite, hungry, pulled the shell of the reality over itself, easing into the injured body. Warm, for whatever the equivalent was when dealing with things on such a massive scale, for a completely different kind of sensory system. A Quantum Parasite existing in the fourth dimension could still detect the warmth of entropy in some manner though.

It reached out, long tendrils of universe-stuff connecting to the shattered remains of universes destroyed by the Convergence, pulling them in the patchwork the shell, to eat off the slowly decaying timelines each one brought with it. Then it hit the mother-lode, the huge Frankenstein's monster of a corpse that was Battleworld. Each dimension glutted the beast's nest with new timelines, new minds, new psychic connections it could devour at will without harming a soul. In the end, it was a very happy, content parasite.

 

* * *

 

It'd been a couple months since he first woke up on the rooftop. He'd gone through a spurt calling himself Red, before he met up with Spider-man, the second one, who'd been kind enough to connect him to family. Family, of another world, another kind. No reality was kicking its feet and screaming right about now, the way he kept stepping through into other universes entirely. Universes without superpowers, with horrible monsters, with completely different heroes, they were all up for grabs on the spinning door of his new life.

They gave him his history, and future. They explained the looming Red Hood who was years older than him in every place he'd come across. Told him about the murder, the wanton destruction. They told him about how he'd died in each universe. But most importantly they gave him his name, a fact he repeated to himself every night like he feared that it would be taken away from him while he slept.

"My name is Jason Peter Todd," he'd whisper to himself, staring at the ceiling and willing it to stay true.

It was hard on everyone who met him. They knew him, they recognized him, but he didn't. Everyone was a stranger, every face new and unique. They wanted him so badly to know them, and they acted like he was so close to them. He tried, but it was a world of strangers begging for emotions he didn't have, because he didn't remember. He could tell between universes handily, each one thrown together by the unknown parasite. The tricks of the detective never actually left him, so picking up small differences was easy. Hell, his training remained almost completely intact.

In fact the whole mess in his head was pretty predictable at this point. Joker and Batman references skated by, but he'd completely forget they existed on bad days, and they'd cause him to freeze up, go blank for a little while. Faces and people were missing, identifying stories gone, but he could remember little things. Where to hide to avoid the August rains, how to undo the traps on the Robin belts, where to steal the best leftovers after the strip clubs dumped their buffets at 4am for fresh food. He lived homeless, became a vigilante for his little turf. He stole guns, money, resold them to bigger names. Got them out of Gotham, and somehow worked right under the Bats nose. Got an apartment for appearances sake, lived with the Spider for a while, but he kept trailing back to the streets when he wasn't there.

Then he managed to pick up a TV, one of the old kinds, and set it up in his latest attempt at an apartment. He didn't know it was actually a trap he set for himself by doing so to be honest, I mean what about the TV was going to get him? He watched DVDs on it, borrowed from people on vacation and returned before they got home (those B and E skills were not something to sniff at), before he finally figured out how to steal cable.

He curled up in bed, slumped over after a long night, and flicked on the television with a yawn. Early morning news, check his weapons, and then bed. He'd gotten into the habit over the last week, and like most of his habits, they were good for business. He smiled at a human interest story about ducklings being herded into Robinson Park, and leaned back as the story changed.

The picture that flashed onscreen was a face he'd been avoiding passionately, some subconscious desire to protect himself that had kept him well away from actually looking at the man.

"Bruce Wayne held a power conference today," a woman started, and the man flashed onscreen even as Jason jolted to change the channel.

"My company is committed--" Jason stared at him, nose to television, his voice hitting him and...

and...

He fell silently to the floor, collapsing as neat as you pleased as his memories slammed back into his head.

At first it was just all there, and too much. He couldn't sort, it was just like getting bashed in the head and seeing that sudden bright light for a second when your brain hit the skull and then everything went dark. Except instead of dark he started waking up. Slowly, blinking his eyes, and breathing like he'd run a mile in 30 seconds. His head felt so fucking heavy, like he had a headcold. He startled, and tried to sit up, but went right back down, blinking like a stunned animal.

"Bruce," the croak carried on the air and he flinched at the sound of his own voice as well as the memories. He forgot what it was like to actually remember a person, to feel the entirety of what you knew about them all at once in this big presence just by thinking about them. He'd heard the name and it'd been empty, hollow, but now.

He remembered curling up on the couch with him while he was sick. Remembered annoying the bats in the cave and getting yelled at. He remembered wanting to murder him. The conflict between the memories hit hard and he went reeling again, blinking the feeling of utter rage and contempt away when it hit his recent memories. He'd been mourned, heavily. He knew that now, in a way he hadn't then. He'd heard stories and it tempered the first reaction to rip his throat out with his teeth.

He breathed in heavily, and reached for more memories suddenly greedy. Tim-- is empty, he's surprised. So's Damian. He's never heard of either of them and his new memories of them suddenly feel that much more important. But that makes him think of being Robin, and that's a powerful one, nothing from Red Hood, except that little stomach twist that related to Joker. And he catches the full force of both of those endings at once. He was replaced. He was murdered.

He remembered the agony in full bloody detail now. He knew why Tims were fearful of him now too, because that was rage boiling in his gut. Bruce replaced him and, never tried to fix it, and-- that's why he'd tried to murder him. Oh well that explained a lot. The TV flicked away from Bruce's voice, and he relaxed into the carpet a little more, a heavy sag.

"Shit," he said out loud, and checked himself. Why was he so angry? He was angrier in his memory. Something must've-- the Laz pit.

He'd been through the Lazarus pit, and he jolted upright at that, shoving himself off the floor and hauling his ass into the bed. He was struck by how long his arms were, how small everything was, Jesus he'd grown a foot and a hundred pounds since these memories. That was a jump. He remembered, Talia now, and his heart hurt suddenly. He'd been gone for 7 months, at least, and she didn't know where he'd gone. Oh she must be so worried, she had been keeping tabs on him, trying to-- when he started acclimating, getting close to Bats she must've pulled back and let him go. That was her goal in the end, to get him back home. There was no reason to fuck with that when he got back on the grid in his good graces after nearly killing the guy. She must've thought that he'd gotten himself under control but...

"Oh boy, she's gonna mom-kill me. I wonder if B's got Ra's phone number so I can just call her up," he laughed at the ceiling, and closed his eyes throwing an arm over them when it turned rough and hiccuped, "God, Alfred. Babs. Dick. My Dick." He jolted at that realizing more than ever there was a difference between the man he'd gotten closer to and the one he remembered. They were distinctly different people. Well... his was probably torn up about him too, but the difference was he didn't know he was around.

Panic rose in his chest, he was in the wrong timeline, that could seal up any minute now. Bruce didn't know he was alive, his didn't, did he? He would have to face him. Normally he knew he'd run, but this... felt heavy, big, enormous. He felt stronger than he had before though, less terrified of missteps. He'd all but healed something the other him, the him before this, wouldn't have been able to. His memories in those times were rough and angry, he wasn't there anymore like he could have been. He was at ease with a lot more.

"Oh," he said out loud again, realizing the voices were something new. He didn't remember them as a kid, nor growing up, just after he came back. He'd thought they were him, while he was driven practically batshit by rage, but after living with them for a while he knew now that it wasn't his thoughts. He could separate them and that boded badly. They hissed against the inside of his skull even as he thought that, agitated, and he winced. Okay, so he picked up some hitchhikers when he did his little swan dive. That was cool, okay, sarcasm. They hadn't tried to hurt him technically, so he put that aside for now. He would handle it if they started becoming a problem.

"I'm still me," he jolted up, again, looking around at his apartment. He had other safe houses in the city, better paid for ones. Hell he had a bank account, he had Talia funds. There were no reasons for him to steal or sneak around as some kid. He could feel himself partially aged up, less playful, less cute. His mind was clearer than it had been in a while, his emotions stronger. He knew his training, he remembered faces. He knew villains, all the past people. He knew everything. He remembered the Teen Titans, remembered Joker.

He really remembered Joker, and tipped his head to the side, yeah he was... he was gonna do something about that. He wasn't gonna kill him, and it delighted him to realize that he didn't have the inclination the original Red Hood would have, but boy he was gonna make the man regret killing him. His grudges were a lot smaller than they used to be, and he appreciated that. Appreciated everything.

Remembered Talia's number.

He rolled over heavily. Miles and Dick were gonna throw a fit that they hadn't been here for him during this, but he's pretty sure they would have been unnerved by how well he was taking it. Or at least been trying to get him to talk when he really just needed to think. Everyone was gonna throw a fit that he was back actually, even if recently he'd been showing signs of slipping. Well now he knew why, hanging anywhere near the manor and having those close encounters with Bat-Kind had nearly flipped his switch repeatedly in public. That would have sucked. Wow though.

Wow he felt... whole. For the first time in a long time, and smiled to himself gazing at the ceiling, "Geez, and I was scared of this?" He licked his teeth, and grinned wider, "I am Jason Peter Todd... and I am back."

**Author's Note:**

> Miiiight not make sense to everybody but I tried to include backstory at the beginning so everyone could be mostly caught up. Earth-72 is my own invention/universe and I'll post other fics relating to this under an Earth-72 tag or make a collection if I do more than just this. To the RPers RPing with Jason: ... HE'S BAAAAAAAAACK.


End file.
